But _hola_! what comes here?
It looks like one of the carriages of the court." A white cloud of dust, which had rolled towards them down the road, was now so near that the glint of gilding and the red coat of the coachman could be seen breaking out through it.

As the two cavaliers reined their horses aside to leave the roadway clear, the coach rumbled heavily past them, drawn by two dapple grays, and the Horsemen caught a glimpse, as it passed, of a beautiful but haughty face which looked out at them.
An instant afterwards a sharp cry had caused the driver to pull up his horses, and a white hand beckoned to them through the carriage window.
"It is Madame de Montespan, the proudest woman in France," whispered De Catinat.

"She would speak with us, so do as I do." He touched his horse with the spur, gave a _gambade_ which took him across to the carriage, and then, sweeping off his hat, he bowed to his horse's neck; a salute in which he was imitated, though in a somewhat ungainly fashion, by his companion.
"Ha, captain!" said the lady, with no very pleasant face, "we meet again." "Fortune has ever been good to me, madame." "It was not so this morning." "You say truly.

It gave me a hateful duty to perform." "And you performed it in a hateful fashion." "Nay, madame, what could I do more ?" The lady sneered, and her beautiful face turned as bitter as it could upon occasion.
"You thought that I had no more power with the king.

You thought that my day was past.